In a message dated 3/8/2010 7:13:26 rbj at rbjones.com writes:
"Feigl which is about
physicalism and the foundations of psychology, but Carnap's
response, in which he mostly agrees with Feigl, he omits the
mention of psychology, and it looks like he just addressed
general questions about physicalism without specific
reference to psychology." ...
Well I think philosophers should dig into other disciplines,
to whatever depth suits them. Of course there is a risk of
getting egg al over your face. And of being ignored."
-----
I don't know! So perhaps we could examine Carnap on one specific
psychological concept, such as 'belief' -- he did work on 'subjective probability',
right? And that would involve measure of belief, assent, or what have you.
Never mind being ignored by a psychologist. I have no ignorance complex!
--
Consider
Prob. 1
Prob 0
Prob < .5
Prob > .5
I have loads of material on this by Griceans -- notably Peacocke and Pears.
The idea that:
A: It's raining!
B: Possibly. --> prob. < 0.5
A: It's raining!
B: Probably. --> prob. > 0.5
But not everybody is a stickler for that usage (to use "possibly" and
"probably" like that.
Then there's 'desire' and 'intention'. It is held, by Pears and Peacocke
(e.g. Pears in the Vermazen/Hintikka book on Davidson's Actions and Events:
I intend that p. I believe p will be achieved with prob. > 0.5
You can DESIRE things with lower probabilities, but to INTEND them you need
some degree of certainty that it will occur. Grice did speak of
"Uncertainty" in various cases (notably his Brit. Ac. lecture, "Uncertainty and
Intention" --.
So I would assume that these matters of 'subjective probability' which ARE
more or less quantifiable, would have appealed the formalist in Carnap,
etc. ---
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza